I am Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Heartland Institute, Senior Advisor for Entitlement Reform and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation, General Counsel for the American Civil Rights Union, and Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. I served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush. I am a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of America's Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb (New York: Harper Collins, 2011).
I write about new, cutting edge ideas regarding public policy, particularly concerning economics.

To The Horror Of Global Warming Alarmists, Global Cooling Is Here

Around 1250 A.D., historical records show, ice packs began showing up farther south in the North Atlantic. Glaciers also began expanding on Greenland, soon to threaten Norse settlements on the island. From 1275 to 1300 A.D., glaciers began expanding more broadly, according to radiocarbon dating of plants killed by the glacier growth. The period known today as the Little Ice Age was just starting to poke through.

Summers began cooling in Northern Europe after 1300 A.D., negatively impacting growing seasons, as reflected in the Great Famine of 1315 to 1317. Expanding glaciers and ice cover spreading across Greenland began driving the Norse settlers out. The last, surviving, written records of the Norse Greenland settlements, which had persisted for centuries, concern a marriage in 1408 A.D. in the church of Hvalsey, today the best preserved Norse ruin.

Colder winters began regularly freezing rivers and canals in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Northern France, with both the Thames in London and the Seine in Paris frozen solid annually. The first River Thames Frost Fair was held in 1607. In 1607-1608, early European settlers in North America reported ice persisting on Lake Superior until June. In January, 1658, a Swedish army marched across the ice to invade Copenhagen. By the end of the 17th century, famines had spread from northern France, across Norway and Sweden, to Finland and Estonia.

Reflecting its global scope, evidence of the Little Ice Age appears in the Southern Hemisphere as well. Sediment cores from Lake Malawi in southern Africa show colder weather from 1570 to 1820. A 3,000 year temperature reconstruction based on varying rates of stalagmite growth in a cave in South Africa also indicates a colder period from 1500 to 1800. A 1997 study comparing West Antarctic ice cores with the results of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2) indicate a global Little Ice Age affecting the two ice sheets in tandem.

The Siple Dome, an ice dome roughly 100 km long and 100 km wide, about 100 km east of the Siple Coast of Antartica, also reflects effects of the Little Ice Age synchronously with the GISP2 record, as do sediment cores from the Bransfield Basin of the Antarctic Peninsula. Oxygen/isotope analysis from the Pacific Islands indicates a 1.5 degree Celsius temperature decline between 1270 and 1475 A.D.

The Franz Josef glacier on the west side of the Southern Alps of New Zealand advanced sharply during the period of the Little Ice Age, actually invading a rain forest at its maximum extent in the early 1700s. The Mueller glacier on the east side of New Zealand’s Southern Alps expanded to its maximum extent at roughly the same time.

Ice cores from the Andeas mountains in South America show a colder period from 1600 to 1800. Tree ring data from Patagonia in South America show cold periods from 1270 to 1380 and from 1520 to 1670. Spanish explorers noted the expansion of the San Rafael Glacier in Chile from 1675 to 1766, which continued into the 19th century.

The height of the Little Ice Age is generally dated as 1650 to 1850 A.D. The American Revolutionary Army under General George Washington shivered at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78, and New York harbor was frozen in the winter of 1780. Historic snowstorms struck Lisbon, Portugal in 1665, 1744 and 1886. Glaciers in Glacier National Park in Montana advanced until the late 18th or early 19th centuries. The last River Thames Frost Fair was held in 1814. The Little Ice Age phased out during the middle to late 19th century.

The Little Ice Age, following the historically warm temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period, which lasted from about AD 950 to 1250, has been attributed to natural cycles in solar activity, particularly sunspots. A period of sharply lower sunspot activity known as the Wolf Minimum began in 1280 and persisted for 70 years until 1350. That was followed by a period of even lower sunspot activity that lasted 90 years from 1460 to 1550 known as the Sporer Minimum. During the period 1645 to 1715, the low point of the Little Ice Age, the number of sunspots declined to zero for the entire time. This is known as the Maunder Minimum, named after English astronomer Walter Maunder. That was followed by the Dalton Minimum from 1790 to 1830, another period of well below normal sunspot activity.

The increase in global temperatures since the late 19th century just reflects the end of the Little Ice Age. The global temperature trends since then have followed not rising CO2 trends but the ocean temperature cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Every 20 to 30 years, the much colder water near the bottom of the oceans cycles up to the top, where it has a slight cooling effect on global temperatures until the sun warms that water. That warmed water then contributes to slightly warmer global temperatures, until the next churning cycle.

Those ocean temperature cycles, and the continued recovery from the Little Ice Age, are primarily why global temperatures rose from 1915 until 1945, when CO2 emissions were much lower than in recent years. The change to a cold ocean temperature cycle, primarily the PDO, is the main reason that global temperatures declined from 1945 until the late 1970s, despite the soaring CO2 emissions during that time from the postwar industrialization spreading across the globe.

The 20 to 30 year ocean temperature cycles turned back to warm from the late 1970s until the late 1990s, which is the primary reason that global temperatures warmed during this period. But that warming ended 15 years ago, and global temperatures have stopped increasing since then, if not actually cooled, even though global CO2 emissions have soared over this period. As The Economist magazine reported in March, “The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO2 put there by humanity since 1750.” Yet, still no warming during that time. That is because the CO2 greenhouse effect is weak and marginal compared to natural causes of global temperature changes.

At first the current stall out of global warming was due to the ocean cycles turning back to cold. But something much more ominous has developed over this period. Sunspots run in 11 year short term cycles, with longer cyclical trends of 90 and even 200 years. The number of sunspots declined substantially in the last 11 year cycle, after flattening out over the previous 20 years. But in the current cycle, sunspot activity has collapsed. NASA’s Science News report for January 8, 2013 states,

“Indeed, the sun could be on the threshold of a mini-Maunder event right now. Ongoing Solar Cycle 24 [the current short term 11 year cycle] is the weakest in more than 50 years. Moreover, there is (controversial) evidence of a long-term weakening trend in the magnetic field strength of sunspots. Matt Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory predict that by the time Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Independent lines of research involving helioseismology and surface polar fields tend to support their conclusion.”

That is even more significant because NASA’s climate science has been controlled for years by global warming hysteric James Hansen, who recently announced his retirement.

But this same concern is increasingly being echoed worldwide. The Voice of Russia reported on April 22, 2013,

“Global warming which has been the subject of so many discussions in recent years, may give way to global cooling. According to scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory in St.Petersburg, solar activity is waning, so the average yearly temperature will begin to decline as well. Scientists from Britain and the US chime in saying that forecasts for global cooling are far from groundless.”

That report quoted Yuri Nagovitsyn of the Pulkovo Observatory saying, “Evidently, solar activity is on the decrease. The 11-year cycle doesn’t bring about considerable climate change – only 1-2%. The impact of the 200-year cycle is greater – up to 50%. In this respect, we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years.” In other words, another Little Ice Age.

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I am reading that 40% of republicans are worried about global warming. And yet not a single republican will vote in the house for global warming bills. Right now the Republican party is really dysfunctional and not able to represent its constituents properly.

One of two things will happen.

1. THe republicans will break the stranglehold on them.

or

2. They will loose enough constituents over time that can’t sustain a veto anymore due to lose of voters to other parties.

I am a liberally minded democrat hoping that the republicans will get it together and make the changes needed to get this crucial work done and fast.

I was also taken to task for name calling myself because I wrote that the GOP leadership embodies decision-making cowardice in their response to the science of climate change. But consider the following about a January 2012 meeting between the GOP presidential candidates and Kerry Emanuel, who was then a life-long registered Republican and a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

“[Newt] Gingrich and [Mitt] Romney understood, … and I think they even believed the evidence and understood the risk,” Emanuel says. “But they were so terrified by the extremists in their party that in the primaries they felt compelled to deny it. Which is not good leadership, good integrity. I got a low impression of them as leaders.” Throughout the Republican presidential primaries, every candidate but one—former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who was knocked out of the race at the start—questioned, denied, or outright mocked the science of climate change.

*laughs* Anyone else is a brain dead name caller, but you , citing some recent weather, are an economist wanna be scientist. (Economists have nothing to so with science, no matter how though soest protest…)

To ignore the vast majority of scientists, to ignore the ice caps melting and to look at brief patterns of weather is to be a selfish fatalist who doesn’t care about his fellow man or the very earth he lives on.

I will guess you drive a gas guzzler and complain about the price, and do not care to not litter, buy as much plastic as possible and have never given back to the world nor know what it means.

It is a “secret science” to you, because you cannot use your own logical brain to accept that “we” humans are and have been a huge problem. Sadly the Christian deniers see it as their salvation, and the uneducated and not too bright and fearful see it as something to block and deny…

It is interesting to see a lawyer rail against scientists claiming that they are operating by consensuses, are scientifically illiterate and so on. Then going on to accuse them of name calling. It is highly beneficial for a scientist to find a mistake or a problem with the work of others. For instance, Einstein is so lauded because he showed that Newtonian Mechanics did not work in all cases. People did not suppress his findings. This is not Medieval times where people will be burned at the stake for disagreeing with the Church. The reason that no papers that disagree with the idea of anthropogenic global warming have been published in science journals is that there is no evidence that there is any other cause. The whole think about El Nino and La Nina, for instance, is silly. If the whole world is heating up then they are a part of the world and the presence or absence of them doesn’t change anything. They are not a heat source but a consequence of the uneven distribution of heat. “Natural cycles” are also not heat sources and it is ridiculous to say they are. It is like saying that tree spirits are causes of global warming. When the world gets hotter there is a reason. It is getting hotter so there has to be a reason. The sun is getting cooler. The warm period to which you refer was local and not global. You say that the Earth is not getting warmer yet even the US Navy is publishing documents about new strategies because of free passage over the North now. The ice is really melting. Even the study done at Berkeley by your masters, the Koch brothers, have shown the world is getting warmer by doing a statistical analysis of billions of temperature readings. You count on people not checking on your statements and your claims there is no evidence. I read Science and a week rarely goes by where new, carefully vetted, evidence is not presented. The idea that I or anyone I know that is concerned about global warming wants to “reverse the industrial revolution” sounds like a carefully crafted soundbite that is obviously ridiculous. I live in Silicon Valley and one of the major investment targets is alternative energy sources. No one wants to go backwards, we simply want to move forwards in a less destructive manner. If one solution that is proposed is not viable it does not mean there is no viable solution. You grip that solution in your teeth like a puppy on a rag doll and use it to claim there are not possible solutions. It works with your base of people that are risk adverse and not open to innovation … conservatives. Ironically, entrepreneurs are not risk adverse and innovation is our major driver. Thus, your alleged pro business stance is exactly against business. If you were a real economist you would know that energy if fungible yet you make a living claiming that it is not. Just loudly proclaiming you are an expert scientist, economist, businessman and so will fool some people but when you don’t have a basic understanding of what any of those professions do the people in the professions recognize it. Because of your writing I no longer consider Forbes magazine to be a credible source of any information whatsoever. I would never say to someone “I believe such and such is true because I read it in Forbes” and if anyone tells me they read something in Forbes and thus believes it I laugh at them and say that is like believing a Spider Man comic book.

Mr. Donald, You can call it a business and yourself an entrepreneur when you stop sucking off of the taxpayer teat. But when you make your living off of the taxpayers as a crony capitalist welfare queen, you cannot also brag that you are not risk adverse and an innovator. The reason that so-called alternative energy is no alternative and probably will never be was explained by Robert Bryce in his book, Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future. The energy in wind and solar energy “sources” is highly diffuse. That is why the industrial revolution did not arise during the Roman Empire when those were the primary sources of energy. Today, the technology of oil and gas production is actually advancing far more rapidly as an effective matter than the technology of “alternative energy.” Moreover, if you were fluent in English, you would know that I never came anywhere close to proclaiming myself “an expert scientist” or even a businessman.

Good idea to not call yourself “an expert scientist”…and that’s not an ad hominem, just an agreement.

If you were “an expert scientist”, you would have read: Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content by Balmaseda, Trenberth, and Källén…which explains that much of the heat, as was observed in comments earlier, is currently being absorbed by the oceans at depth. That would produce a lull in atmospheric warming.

Lo and behold, just such a scenario was predicted by Keenlyside, Latif, et.al. in their 2007 paper: Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector. They said:

“Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.”

Lindzen and Happer are far too busy running away from the likes of these:

1 Jay Lehr, Ph.D. Science Director of The Heartland Institute. Speaks with some authority when denouncing climate science as a mercenary fraud and hotbed of criminal mischief, as he was convicted and jailed for defrauding the EPA of $200K

2. Stefan “TheDenier” Mikitch Australian gulag survivor who wants those who disagrees with him imprisoned Insists methane stays underground because it is heavier than nitrogen or oxygen. Created website called “METHANEGATE

3. Joe “Joe’s World” LaLonde Crayon-toting skeptic who poses by-hand constructions as an alternative to the dimensional analysis that is the lingua franca of physics http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/lalonde-joe/world-calculations.pdf

4. Doug Cotton Australian monomaniac who publishes a non-GHG-based theory to explain the Earth’s elevated temperature at a site called Prinicipia Scientific International.

5. Herman Alexander Pope Retired NASA scientist whose nebulous epigrams : “When the Arctic is liquid, Earth is cooling When the Arctic is ice, Earth is warming This is the Thermostat of Earth” reflect his theory is that excess CO2 in the atmosphere cannot come from human activity

6. Oliver K. Manuel NASA dropout turned adjunct professor in the boonies. Author of “Iron Sun” thesis, but not much seen at science conferences as he remains under house arrest for child molestation

7. Harry Dale Huffman Tries to disprove the greenhouse effect by invoking atmospheric data from the planet Venus. Author of the theory that aliens altered the shape of the Australian continent to resemble an upside-down sheepdog

9. Tony (climatereason) Brown A skeptic who teaches that qualitative anecdotes trump quantitative statistics as the basis of paleoclimatology, Frequently points to renaissance paintings of winter scenes as evidence of modern warming being natural.

10. David Postma Claims radiative energy balance models are wrong because a factor of ½ was omitted from one printing of the conventional model. Never mind the corrigendum- it’s part of the cover up too.

11. Arno Arrack Thinks global warming is just a shift of warmer ocean circulation into the Arctic region, thus generating a natural climate change. Self published author of “What Warming?” whose forward whines about the content’s rejection by both Nature and Science while the references cite Lysenko cites in support of his work.

13. Chief Hydrologist An Australian civil engineer who invokes chaos and complexity theory and says his screen handle ( sock puppets include include Captain Kangaroo and Dionysus) recalls a Simpson’s character who transformed from a hydrologist into a criminal mastermind — the brother of Sideshow Bob.

Oddly, Heartland Institute Science Director Jay Lehr also answers this description, having led the American Water Well Association before his fraud conviction.

14. Joachim Seifert Barely intelligible eastern European crank whose secret theory of climate change may relate to solar variations , To find ut you must purchase his pamphlet in the original German from Amazon. ISBN number, 978-3-86805-604-4

15. The SkyDragons Tree-house coalition indisposed to believe in electromagnetic radiation theory in general and the radiative equilibrium of greenhouse gases in particular. Claes Johnson stirs the pseudoscience pot while pseudo-lawyer, John O’Sullivan, does the marketing. This editorial collective self-published book so gonzo even Watts eventually figured out he was being conned.

16. Mike Haseler Highly original Scottishauthor of the theory that photons are an elitist hoax: “Over time I realised that: 1. There is no need for the idea of a “photon”. 2. That none of the raw evidence requires “photons”. 3. That the wave-particle theory of light is anti-scientific in the sense that it is impossible to disprove it “

17. Nicola Scafetta Duke physicist who asks “Does the Sun work as a nuclear fusion amplifier of planetary tidal forcing? A proposal for a physical mechanism based on the mass-luminosity relation”. No, Nicola, it does not.

Philip Haddad An occasional commenter who pushes the theory that the only warming is due to the burning of fossil fuels itself. He is one of the types, a retired PhD chemist with too much time on his hands, writing futile editorials to small-town newspapers.

19. Myrrh An Australian who ridiculeth ye Climate-Philosophers in ye Olde English style & ye third person

So first Myrrh is saying that the greenhouse gases water/carbon dioxide cool the Earth by taking away the heat from the surface of the Earth through the Water Cycle and it is this cycle which has been expunged from the AGW world to pretend that greenhouse gases warm the Earth. May be a Poe.

20. Spartacusisfree (aka mydogsgotnonose, aka AlecM) Engineer with a sock puppet problem who claims that the radiative properties of CO2 don’t apply to the atmosphere:

“There is absolutely no experimental proof of any CO2… I became a ‘denier’ after I concluded there were 5 errors in IPCC physics. I may be mad, bad and deluded, but I want a second option because I’m a scientist who believes no-one.”

Yes, it’s a good thing those “brain dead” people don’t engage in the logical fallacy of ad hominem attacks, isn’t it? Most of your posts seem full of ad hominem attacks. Hypocrisy doesn’t help your cause at all.

You name half a dozen skeptical scientists. The IPCC over a thousand scientists working on it. Why do you believe the half dozen instead of the thousand? Is it “religious devotion”, as you put it?